San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom listens to questions from the media regarding yesterday's election and the passing of proposition 8 the marriage equality proposition during a press conference at San Francisco City Hall Wednesday November 5, 2008

Forget the auditorium, the podium and the audience of supervisors, department heads, journalists and political gadflies. Forget the hourlong running time, too.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has been crafting his State of the City speech for months and will debut it today - all 7 1/2 hours of it - on his very own YouTube channel.

The format allows the tech-savvy mayor - who has more than 10,000 Facebook friends and whose official Web site has received 27.6 million hits this year - to reach a wider audience and speak directly to anyone who's interested without the filter of the media or grumbling from critics.

"We have a lot we want to share, but it gets filtered," Newsom told The Chronicle. "To do an address that's unfiltered, what better way to do it than on YouTube?"

It also allows the wonky, long-winded Newsom to leave no detail on the cutting-room floor. The mayor's staff will release the speech in 10 chapters this week, and each one is about 45 minutes long. Health, education and the environment are the subjects on tap for today.

"My critics will say, 'It's 7 1/2 hours - typical,' " Newsom said.

The benefit, he said, is that the format allows him to delve deeper into topics. Ending homelessness and panhandling would always make a traditional State of the City address, he said, but improving the food stamp program probably would not.

Highlights of today's State of the City segments include Newsom's decision to expand the city's unique universal health care program despite major budget cuts to the Public Health Department.

He also discusses a number of environmental initiatives, including transforming Market Street medians into sustainable urban gardens and creating a local carbon fund to ensure carbon offsets purchased by the city are fulfilled in the city - like planting new trees here and not halfway around the world.

Tuesday's segment will cover transportation, Wednesday's will deal with violence prevention and poverty, Thursday's will consider the economic climate and economic development, and Friday's will examine emergency planning and public art.

But will people really sit through the entire speech when they could watch the new James Bond flick three times instead?

"The good news is no one has to," Newsom said. "For those that don't want to, don't."

The idea came to Newsom and his press secretary, Nathan Ballard, in September when they were messing around with a video camera on a business trip to Washington. They had always wrangled over the length of the mayor's State of the City speeches and decided going straight to the Internet could be the answer.

"He's obsessed with policy, and he has a zeal for it that's remarkable. It's my job to put that in bite-sized bits," Ballard said. "The pro is the mayor gets to discuss everything he's passionate about, and the con is there's no time limit."

The mayor joked that viewers will know which piece was filmed last because he'll be sporting a beard in it.

In the segments, the mayor wears a suit and his trademark blue tie and speaks in front of a flat-screen TV that shows slides related to each part of his speech.

It all goes to show there's nothing traditional about this year's annual address, which is usually given in front of city officials in October. (Preparing the YouTube segments apparently took longer, hence the December unveiling.)

The City Charter mandates that the mayor present his policies and budget priorities to the Board of Supervisors each fiscal year, but doesn't spell out the need to do it in person. Newsom has long resisted speaking directly to the board, including not abiding by legislation it passed that asked him to come to the supervisors' chambers for "question time" once a month.

Newsom, who may run for governor in 2010, has tried to get his name and ideas known beyond the Bay Area by writing regularly for Web sites including Daily Kos, the Huffington Post and Salon. The mayor is scheduled to blog on each of those sites today to promote his YouTube speech, Ballard said. His Facebook supporters will also get a blast from him telling them about it.

Chris Dale, spokesman for YouTube, said the site has become increasingly popular for politicians and heads of state over the past two years. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Queen Rania of Jordan and President-elect Barack Obama have used the site extensively to communicate directly to their constituents, Dale said.

"I think it's not about replacing the in-person experience - just like it's not about replacing the newspaper or the typical press conference," Dale said. "It's about augmenting all of that and giving more people access to more information."

Adam Conner, a Facebook associate in the privacy and public policy division, said the Internet is "a natural home for a local politician like a mayor."

"Particularly in a high-tech city like San Francisco, it gives constituents a chance to see and judge for themselves," he said.

The mayor on YouTube

Watch San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's State of the City speech, one part at a time, beginning Monday morning on his YouTube channel:

youtube.com/mayorgavin newsom

The channel, modeled on one used by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, will allow Newsom to post videos of unlimited length and allow anybody to post videos in response.